§ Statement of Purpose

The View from 1776 presents a framework to understand present-day issues from the viewpoint of the colonists who fought for American independence in 1776 and wrote the Constitution in 1787. Knowing and preserving those understandings, what might be called the unwritten constitution of our nation, is vital to preserving constitutional government. Without them, the bare words of the Constitution are just a Rorschach ink-blot that politicians, educators, and judges can interpret to mean anything they wish.

"We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams, to the Officers of the First Brigade, Third Division, Massachusetts Militia, October 11, 1798.

§ American Traditions

§ People and Ideas

§ Decline of Western Civilization: a Snapshot

§ Books to Read

§ BUY MY BOOK

Saturday, April 24, 2004

“Hug an Evangelical”

New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas D. Kristof wrote a piece appearing in the April, 24, 2004, edition of the Times. In it, Mr. Kristof makes the decent point that liberals believe in toleration and respect for everyone but Christian conservatives. My reaction is the following:

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Mr. Kristof:

Thanks for your opinion piece “Hug an Evangelical.”

Perhaps I’m overly sensitive, but I detect an underlying feeling that Christians are, as Freud opined, suffering from a form of insanity. Like other mentally-ill peoples, they should be pitied and treated nicely by liberal-socialists.

My suggestion is that liberal-socialists take a hard look in the mirror. Their unwavering worship of socialism’s secular materiality is the very definition of insanity: endlessly repeating actions that always fail, ever expecting a different result. If liberal-socialists truly believe in Progress under intellectual guidance toward Auguste Comte’s perfection of humanity, they need to take a hard look at today’s France and Germany, not to mention the France of the Reign of Terror, “the future that works” in Stalinist Russia, or the socialist apogee of Hitler’s National Socialism.

Come closer to home: even good socialists like the New School’s Bob Kerry or the late Pat Moynihan admit that FDR’s state-planning triumph, Social Security, will collapse under its own weight.

A particular reason for my annoyance is your dismissive reference to creationism. Let’s stipulate that the Bible may not be literally true. But let me ask you to adduce a single proof, any proof at all, to substantiate Darwinian evolutionary theory. Don’t bother searching, because there are only inferential “might be” pieces of evidence. Not a single thing Darwin himself predicted, notably the fossil record, supports evolution; in fact the fossil record completely disproves evolution.

Liberal-socialists, confident in their secular religiosity, look condescendingly upon Christians. Yet they have no problem believing the fantasies of Stephen Jay Gould or Carl Sagan, ranging from punctuated evolution (which is indistinguishable from Divine intervention) to the belief that little blue men from outer space brought new life forms to earth.

Liberal-socialists should face the scientific fact that evolution is no more than a speculative hypothesis without proof. It remains nothing more than Darwin’s desire to find some materialistic and secular mechanism to discredit what he called “the damnable doctrine” of Christianity. If Darwinian evolution is scientific doctrine, then there remains a possibility that the moon is made of green cheese.

Please forgive me for speaking harshly of the secular, amoral, materialistic religion of socialism that is worshipped by the Times editorial board and reporting staff. It’s just that Christians gave the world an English and American concept of God-given natural-law rights under a Constitutional government of laws, not men. The religion of the Times editorial board has given the world the barbaric savageries of two world wars and systematic liquidation of tens of millions of people in the name of perfecting humanity.